Non-professional

Amateur design activities are much more concentrated on jewellery, ceramics and textiles design. There are some temporary venues, such as Paz-Art, organized in a park in Cihangir district which is located next to Tophane and Beyoğlu, which has become a centre for art and design related venues and activities. Some other districts such as Ortaköy and Kadıköy also house permanent and temporary venues for amateur and/or semi-professional design work. A new trend is to use the internet to exhibit and sell the outcomes of amateur design activities.

In addition to a sometimes very high quality semi-professional design activity, there are many people producing low quality design work. As there is not a high quality craft design education with an emphasis on creative interpretation of old mediums of work, there are not many people who are equipped with both the necessary skills of the crafts and creativity. In this respect, one can mention the İznik Çini Foundation (http://www.iznik.com/tr) as an important step not only to preserve the old ceramics design tradition of the historical town of İznik, but also to develop it with creative input.